The Fashion Designer

by Nancy Moser

  “But maybe Antonio doesn’t want children,” Gert said.

  Maude had to laugh. “Now you have us marrying? He might even be married. I just met him.” Listen to your own words, Maude. You’ve let yourself get swept up in the moment. You had a lovely afternoon with a pleasant and entertaining man. That’s all there is to it. All there can be to it.

  Annie came to her rescue. “Spare Maude your romantic imaginings. It appears we now have a storefront. When can we see it?”

  Maude dangled the key in front of her.

  “That’s it, up ahead,” Maude said. “The store with the striped awning.”

  Annie loved it already. The awning brought back memories of many quaint shops in Paris.

  Maude got out the key as the rest of them peered in the window, their hands cupped against the glass.

  “This front is a good display area,” Edna said. “We could get two, maybe three mannequins set up.”

  Maude used the key, went inside, switched on the lights, and swept an arm, welcoming them. “Voila! I present to you, Unruffled.”

  The seven women—including Gert and Ginny—fanned out over the store. They touched the wainscoting and the counter, explored the fitting rooms and the back storage area. Annie let the others exclaim and chatter. She let them move ahead of her. She needed time to process everything she saw, and as she did so, her mind moved beyond the here and now into a future time. She could see racks of dresses, pretty chairs set in small groupings, displays of accessories. And the customers…they milled about the store, their eyes bright with anticipation that these gorgeous dresses could be theirs. The store was heady with joy and satisfaction, and something many women didn’t have in their busy lives: fun.

  “I want them giddy with it!” she said loudly.

  The other ladies stopped their explorations and looked at her.

  “What did you say?” Henrietta asked.

  I didn’t mean to say it aloud! “I want our customers to be giddy with their experience here. I want Unruffled to be a place where they leave all their troubles and to-dos outside. They look through our dresses, try them on, and ooh and ahh over their reflections. I want them to swirl and feel pretty, smile and laugh.”

  “And buy,” Maude added.

  “Of course. And they will buy because the experience here will be fun.”

  “Fun?” Edna asked.

  Annie laughed. “You say the word as if it is foreign.”

  “To most women, it may be. They go through each day with survival in mind, not fun.”

  “Yet when we both worked at Macy’s, we saw that women had fun shopping.”

  “They did.”

  “When a woman came into the dress goods department wanting to sew herself an outfit, I had fun waiting on her, helping her choose the pattern, the fabric, and the trims. When she left she was full of satisfaction and excitement about how she would look in her new garment. I want that to happen here.”

  “But ‘giddy,’ Annie?” Vesta asked. “How do we make them giddy?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I want that to be our goal. Understood?”

  “Giddy is as giddy does.” With those words, Maude took Annie and Edna’s hands and formed the beginning of a circle. Vesta pulled a reluctant Henrietta into the fray, along with the two seamstresses. At Maude’s prompting, the women skipped around in a circle, laughing at the childlike feeling of abandon—until they were giddy with it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Although it was Saturday, Henrietta and Gert were readying themselves to go in to work. Now that they had a storefront, the pressure was on to finish the dresses.

  Now that we have a storefront, the pressure is on me to pay for it. In two days.

  Henrietta closed the door of the bedroom. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she told Gert.

  She opened her trunk, and from a secret pocket in the side of the lid, she removed a velvet bag. She emptied the contents onto the bed. As a young woman Henrietta often emptied her jewelry box onto the bed when the sun was bright, just to admire the dazzle of the stones and the settings. Now, in her tiny bedroom with its dark alley window there was no sunlight. No sparkling.

  She indulged in the memory of putting on her favorite necklaces, bracelets, and earrings, and admiring her reflection in the mirror, practicing her curtsy for the next ball, holding out her hand for some invisible beau to kiss.

  Today, Henrietta did not try on the jewelry. There was no time to admire, no need to practice her curtsy, and no man to kiss her hand. Today the jewelry held a different promise: the assurance that her lie would stay hidden.

  The rent on the store was fifty dollars a month, with the first month’s rent and a month’s rent as a deposit promised to Mr. Ricci on Monday. Henrietta only had $45.34 in her account, as she’d made another withdrawal for rent and expenses in addition to giving Annie fifty dollars to pay for wages and supplies. It was time for drastic action.

  She picked up a pearl necklace that had been a present from her parents for her sixteenth birthday. She smiled at the memory of opening the purple velvet box, exclaiming with delight, and wrapping her arms around her parents’ necks, kissing them, thanking them.

  Annie spoke of women feeling giddy. That’s how she had felt at her first ball, wearing the pearls. She’d tried to stop smiling but had been unable to do so. Especially when her dance card was quickly filled. She knew she was pretty, and she danced every dance, immersed in the joy of dancing.

  She set the pearls aside, for the memories were too dear. And it was probably not worth enough to help the business.

  She took up a lapis blue necklace. She’d never worn it because the setting was intricate and heavy. But it was precious to her because it was given to her by her father. The necklace had been his mother’s, his mother who had died soon after he was born. A previous Lady Newley—whose portrait hung over the mantel in Crompton Hall’s drawing room, a beautiful young woman, eternally twenty-one. She wore the necklace in the painting. That it was so strongly tied to family history made Henrietta set it aside.

  Last was an emerald bracelet and matching drop earrings that had been her great-grandmother’s. Adelaide Weston, the Dowager Countess of Summerfield, had passed these on to Henrietta when she’d become betrothed to Hank. “Wear them on your honeymoon as you tour the Continent, my dear Etta.”

  But there had been no honeymoon, no tour.

  Although she hated to give up something that reminded her of Great-Grandmother, it was the best choice. She put the other pieces safely away, wrapped the bracelet and earrings in a handkerchief, and stuffed them into her crocheted purse.

  Gert knocked on the door of her room. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  Henrietta had been so immersed in her memories that she hadn’t heard a knock. Who would be visiting? The ladies were all meeting at work.

  She opened the door of her bedroom and found Steven Holmquist standing in the parlor, hat in hand. They’d seen each other often during the past few weeks, but always at Edna’s for a meal or at church. Henrietta had been relieved when their awkward start had evolved into a comfortable camaraderie. She had high hopes that her initial feeling of connection had been on the mark.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning.” Her confusion fed her next question. “What are you doing here?” She immediately couched her bluntness. “That was rude. It’s nice to see you.”

  “My coming without warning was rude. But if you’re willing, I’ve come to take you on a Saturday outing. Since New York City is new to both of us, I thought we could explore it together.”

  “We’re working today,” she said with true regret. “We were just leaving.”

  His smile faded. “As a teacher I don’t work on Saturdays. I just assumed…”

  Gert intervened. “I’m sure it would be all right if you didn’t come in today, Miss Henrietta. At least not for a few hours.”

  “But Annie said she needed all hands.”

 
Gert grinned at Steven then said, “I’ll work hard enough for both of us. Go on now. See the city.”

  Henrietta longed to do just that. “Are you sure?”

  “I am.” Gert slipped past Steven and was out the door before Henrietta could change her mind.

  “Well then,” Steven said. “It appears you are free.”

  “It appears I am.”

  He held her coat for her, and she secured a straw hat with a pin. As she picked up her gloves and purse, she realized it held the jewels inside. She should put them back where they belonged in their safe hideaway. Yet she didn’t want to delay their outing. She would just have to be extra vigilant.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We could go to the Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or Central Park.”

  Henrietta had seen the Statue on the way into the harbor. And art held little interest to her at the moment. “What I crave most is the outdoors: trees and sky and green expanses. I miss the English countryside around Crompton Hall.”

  “Being November now, there is little green, but the Park offers two out of three.”

  “Then Central Park it is.”

  They took a streetcar north. It was new territory for Henrietta. Other than staying at the Hotel Astor in Times Square, she had been in Greenwich Village, where she and her friends lived and worked.

  At the beginning of their outing, she spotted a reputable-looking jewelry store: Cohen & Cohen. She noted its location. She would return later and conduct her business.

  A few blocks beyond that…“Look! There’s Macy’s!” she said. “That’s where Edna and Annie worked.”

  Steven smiled. “I know.”

  She felt herself blush. “Sorry. Of course….your mother. And Annie. I was too exuberant.”

  “I appreciate exuberance. And we are exploring.”

  “I admit I have done little of it. Every year my parents would take my brother and me to London for the social season, and occasionally we would travel to Brighton by the sea, but they were homebodies and preferred the pastoral life.”

  “I’m surprised,” he said. “I assumed you’d seen all the great sights of Europe.”

  “I have been to Paris. That’s where Mother and I saw Annie, at the House of Paquin.” Suddenly, she pointed. “There’s Lane Bryant. Annie and Maude told me about Lena.”

  “An American success story, to be sure.”

  “I expect there are thousands of those stories about the American Dream and streets paved with gold.”

  “You didn’t believe the latter, did you?”

  “Of course not, but I do believe in the dream.” She needed to risk saying one thing more. “I’m living it.”

  He laughed. “In your tiny apartment that must be the size of a pantry back at Crompton Hall?”

  She took offense. “It is my apartment as I live out my American dream.”

  He touched her hand. “I didn’t mean to make light of it.” He pointed to the left. “See there? That’s St. Patrick’s cathedral. And across the street live the Sampsons.”

  “Who are they again?”

  “The ladies didn’t tell you about them?”

  “Annie mentioned them in regard to the business. What should I know?”

  “Perhaps nothing. They were the couple who initially supplied funds. But they pulled out.”

  “Wasn’t it Annie who pulled out?”

  “Annie and the others decided Mrs. Sampson’s fancy preferences did not suit their customer.”

  “That took a lot of courage.”

  “It did. But then the money ran out and they began to panic.” He smiled at her. “Until you came along and saved them.”

  That her rescue might soon come to an end made her stomach clench.

  “Are you all right?”

  She had to brush it off. She had jewelry to sell. Hopefully that income would be enough to fund the move into the store until the dresses began to sell.

  Henrietta drew in a deep breath, relishing the fresh air and the smell of fallen leaves. Yet half of the trees were still wearing their autumn colors—her favorite colors. “This is exactly what I needed. Some leisure. I’m glad Gert made it possible for me to go with you.”

  “I am glad.”

  His frequent compliments made her feel warm inside. “You said this is called the Mall. There is also a Mall in London, near Buckingham Palace, though as you hear, we pronounce it ‘mal.’”

  He laughed. “Of course you do. I’ve noticed we pronounce many words differently.”

  “Such as?”

  “You said ‘lezsure,’ we say it ‘leesure.’ And your ‘shed-yule’ is ‘sked-ule.’”

  It felt wonderful to laugh.

  He held up a finger. “We do laugh the same.”

  “A common language.”

  He bent down to retrieve a lovely red maple leaf. “For you.”

  “Thank you, dear sir.” She spun it in her fingers.

  “Tell me about your home, though I suppose being called Crompton Hall makes it a bit more than a home.”

  “It is. The residence sits on a country estate that’s been in my family for centuries. But in truth, some parts are a bit run down.”

  “Centuries of use will do that.”

  “It partially burned in 1884 when I was a baby. When it was rebuilt, my grandfather had it wired for electricity and indoor plumbing. It was the first in the county to have such luxuries.”

  “Here we are twenty-eight years later and such perks are still absent in many homes, even in a progressive place like New York City.”

  “Progress can be slow.” She thought of her shared bathroom down the hall from her flat. “Our estate is near the village of Summerfield.”

  “Which is where Annie lived.”

  “She lived in the village until Mother took her in.”

  “Was she an orphan?”

  “It would have been better if she was. Her parents were horrible people.”

  “Are they gone now?”

  “I misspoke, for they are very much alive.”

  “What’s so horrible about them?”

  “Mr. Wood is a ne’er do well. The sort who makes people nervous by his very presence. I remember my father saying that no one could count on Mr. Wood—except to cause trouble. And Mrs. Wood is a nasty woman, acting entitled.”

  “To what?”

  “To whatever anyone else has, what anyone else has worked hard for and earned.”

  “They are moochers.”

  “I’m not familiar—”

  “They are leeches.”

  Now she understood. “Indeed. They sponge off anyone and everyone. When people see them coming, they hurry inside. The two of them argue over the color of sky. They stir up dissension as easily as stirring up dust with their footfalls.”

  “Why not put a stop to their mooching? Just tell them no?”

  “Because they are also mean.” She remembered a young Annie, her face bruised. “Although it was not known for a long time, it turns out they hit Annie frequently. And it was said that a blow by the father contributed to her brother’s appendix bursting—and his death. That’s why Mother gave her a position as an under housemaid.”

  “She probably saved her.”

  “I believe she did. Though Annie’s father was arrested, he spent little time in jail. If Annie had continued to live at home, I fear she would have also died from their blows and kicks.”

  A bench opened up, and Henrietta led Steven toward it. Once seated, she wished she had a parasol as the November sun was warm. Steven traded places with her, giving her the shade.

  “Annie has come far,” Steven said. “In distance and self-betterment.”

  “Her courage inspired my own.” She spread her hands. “Hence, Henrietta is here, sitting beside you.”

  “For that, I am utterly thankful.” He took her hand, resting it on her knee. “I am very glad we both moved here. So very, very glad.”

  She squeezed his hand.r />
  His smile was infectious. “It’s as though God brought us together, you from England and me from Pittsburgh. Two people converging in one place. Perhaps with one purpose?”

  Her stomach flipped. “Which is?”

  He pointed to the blue sky overhead. “Limitless.”

  Henrietta relished his joy, for she felt it too. She had never met a man like Steven. Though reticent at first, he continued to show himself to be open and enthusiastic about life. In his presence she felt appreciated. Their amiable connection did seem God-sent.

  They watched as a family walked by, the mother pushing a pram. That is the life I long for.

  The scene seemed to spur him to speak. “My mother wants me to ask you to dinner tomorrow evening. Will you come?”

  The invitation fed into her thoughts. Although she’d eaten at Edna’s table often, she had never been invited by Steven. “I would love to.”

  Suddenly he stood and pointed past the family to a man who was taking photographs. “Let’s go!”

  He pulled her to the man, and they stood in a short line, waiting for their turn.

  “I wish you’d warned me. I would have taken more time on my hair.” She removed her hat and pushed some stray strands into her updo.

  He also removed his hat and ran a hand through his thick hair. “You are beautiful. Always.” Then he kissed her cheek.

  The other couple waiting in line took their cue and also exchanged a kiss.

  Henrietta blushed. She couldn’t imagine being happier.

  When it was their turn, the photographer had them stand side by side, but at the moment he said, “Hold!” Henrietta glanced away.

  “Oh dear,” she said afterward. “I’m afraid I wasn’t looking.”

  The man paid no attention to her objection then took partial payment for the picture—Steven asked for two copies—and gave Steven a card of where to pick it up in the studio on Monday.

  “Next!” the man said.

  Henrietta and Steven walked away. “I’m sorry to ruin the picture,” she said. “Don’t pay him the rest if it isn’t any good.”